However He Leads

However He leads

• Exodus 14:1-14
• The Lord instructed Moses to camp at Pi Hahiroth near the sea, as Pharaoh would pursue them. Pharaoh indeed pursued with his army, but God hardened his heart for His own purposes. When the Israelites saw the Egyptians approaching, they panicked and complained to Moses, fearing death. Moses reassured them, urging them to trust in the salvation of the Lord.
• This is right before the Red Sea Miracle. Right before they get through. BEFORE deliverance
• They’ve been obedient, they are doing what God has asked them to do- they are going
• When you’re being led by the Lord its scary and difficult. It’s unknown and faith building
• Some of ya’ll are here this morning, you’ve heard from God, you know he’s leading you somewhere, and it’s hard. It’s hard because you aren’t even sure where he’s leading you, but you’re doing everything you can to follow him as you go. However he leads.
• Sometimes you know where you are going, and sometimes you’re just following
• Psalm 48:14 For this is God, Our God forever and ever; He will be our guide Even to death.
• But he Guides us! He is leading us and showing us where we are supposed to go. FOLLOW

1. However he leads- Other people will always discourage you

• 3 For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, ‘They are bewildered by the land;
• What I’ve seen in life and in the scriptures is that the faithless always hate the faithful
• People will do whatever they can to discourage you and get you to quit. 
• Pharoah is saying here- You’re coming back. You don’t have what it takes. 
• I don’t understand why people are this way, maybe it’s their brokenness, but people do it
• They think they are being helpful, but they end up being hurtful. Usually Close people to you
• Psalm 55:12-14: For it is not an enemy who reproaches me; Then I could bear it. Nor is it one who hates me who has exalted himself against me; Then I could hide from him. But it was you, a man my equal, my companion and my acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, And walked to the house of God in the throng.
• David was probably talking about Absalom who undermined his authority, gathered people against him, decided he was king and then tried to kill him! AND IT WAS HIS SON
• People who are doing things for the Lord are always the subject of scorn and derision
• Derision refers to the act of mocking, ridiculing, or expressing contempt or scorn for someone or something. It involves treating someone or something with disdain or scornful laughter, often in a way that is intended to belittle or humiliate.
• Often. It doesn’t happen to me as much now that I’ve proven that I am serving God, but in my younger years quite often. People want to break the new Christian and get them to quit. 
• Matthew 10:36 and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.
• Luke 21:16: You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death.
• You ever read of Job? Job faced immense suffering, losing his wealth, health, and even his children, yet his friends came to comfort him. However, their attempts at comfort often turned into discouragement and condemnation.
• Job’s friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, initially sat with him in silence for seven days, mourning his suffering. However, when they began to speak, their words became increasingly discouraging. They suggested that Job’s suffering must be a result of his own sins and urged him to repent. Despite Job’s insistence of his innocence, his friends continued to doubt him and insist that he must have deserved his misfortune.
• Great friends! You know Job’s reply? Job 19:25-26 “25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; 26 And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God, 
• Do not let other’s discourage you while you’re waiting and God is leading you “however he leads” You roll with it. Don’t be redirected from where he is taking you. 

2. Go strong with God

• “and the children of Israel went out with boldness.”
• They didn’t know where they were going, but they were obedient to what God told them 
• I always respect energy and passion, however misdirected it may be. Let’s GOOOO
• Easier to kick someone back across the line than kick them over. I like high energy. 
• Cadence in the AM- No one sounding off. No one wants to be there- SOUND OFF
• Proverbs 28:1 The wicked flee when no one pursues, But the righteous are bold as a lion.
• We, as the righteousness of God, when you’re faced with circumstance that you may not understand or fathom, where God has spoke to you, don’t be discouraged- Go with boldness
• So much of life is learning to have passion and drive to do what needs to be done
• There’s always going to be discouraging people around, but GO WITH BOLDNESS
• Ephesians 3:12 In whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.
• I haven’t always been willing to continue past resistance. I’ve learned to trust God
• I’ve learned throughout the years that if God is in it, and he’s called me to it, he’ll see me through it. Much of what I’ve been able to see God do is just because I’ve boldly trusted him. 
• Joshua 1:9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
• The Israelites, coming off the plagues, in some respect had to realize that God was with them
• You can only go strong if you go with God. They cant make to the Red sea without God w them
• 1 Corinthians 16:13 Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong.
• Here’s what I’ve seen- often times it is in the most dire of circumstances that we jettison the strength of our Faith. We crumble. We lose courage and lack boldness
• The time to prepare for battle is when you’re not in it. Once circumstance comes, you are late
• Do you know what you do in the Army? Train. Train train. Over and over and over. Repetition
• Because proper training will make you respond correctly in battle. How are you preparing?
• Psalm 27:14  Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!
• You don’t have what it takes! But HE DOES- Go with him! How? Prayed up, scriptures in mind, trusting him for the output, You still might have to march around Jericho, but he’ll drop the wall

3. However he leads, You’ll probably experience fear

• When God is leading you somewhere you’ve never been and you have no idea what you are doing or how you are going to get there, it’s the scariest thing you can go through
• Expect that you are going to be afraid. 
• V 10 So they were very afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord. 
• Of course they were afraid. They went from the ‘comfort’ of slavery to pain of the wilderness
• Sometimes slavery appears safer than God’s direction. Its why people stay at bad jobs
• Fear is not an indication that you should stop moving forward. It’s not. He is with you
• Isaiah 41:10 Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.
• I’m not an overly empathetic or consoling person. I try. But at some point, the scriptures have to be true. You’re afraid. I get it. Most of us are at some point. Its normal, it just doesn’t mean you should quit. Despair rarely helps whatever you’re going through. 
• Psalm 23:4  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”
• Moses – When God called Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, Moses expressed fear and doubt. Exodus 3:11 (NKJV) records Moses saying, “But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?'”
• The disciples in the storm – When a great storm arose while Jesus was with his disciples in a boat, they were afraid. Matt 8:26 (NKJV) says, “But He said to them, ‘Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?’ Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.”
• Peter – When walking on water toward Jesus, Peter became afraid and began to sink. Matthew 14:30 (NKJV) recounts Peter saying, “But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, ‘Lord, save me!'”
• Paul – The apostle Paul experienced fear and weakness during his ministry. In 1 Corinthians 2:3 (NKJV), he writes, “I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.”
• Why do you think you’re less than spiritual because you have some fear? Its normal. 
• Now that you identified it, next step is to fix it. Stop living in fear!
• 2 Ti 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
• While it may be normal to experience fear, that is not something God has placed in me for my benefit. God isn’t giving me fear to do something in me. The Devil is trying to stop me. 
• Years ago- Guy in parking lot- acting up, put hand on shoulder, ‘don’t touch me’ the easiest way for me to not touch you is for you to get off my property. I have zero problems on this property
• I know what is allowed and what is not and feel no way about removing what’s not allowed

4. However he leads, Don’t lose heart

• Most of what you are going to do for God will take time.
• Let me say that to you again. Most of what you are going to do, and God is going to do takes time. I do not know exactly why God takes his time, but he does. Frequently.
• The waiting is where you lose heart. Look at this- probably days into a 40 year journey-
• have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt? 12 Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.”
• Humans are so human. We want immediate gratification and often look back to our worst experiences as a better option than the one we are in.
• When God is delivering you on his timeline, trust that he knows what he is doing.
• Waiting on deliverance, job, spouse, healing, word, whatever it is DON’T LOSE HEART
• 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
• If you listen to my sermons, I don’t have very many. Most of them are turn from your sins the other half are God can do it. I am a perpetual optimist
• I think you can be healed, your marriage can be saved, your kids can improve, you can lose that weight, get that job, turn things around, get better, grow
• I want to encourage you that God is able to do above and beyond what you could imagine
• BECAUSE I KNOW WHAT GOD CAN DO. Galatians 6:9 in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.

5. However he leads, It will happen.

• I don’t know when and I Don’t how but I believe that he will. IT’s what he does.
• Do you know who I haven’t seen be victorious? Quitters. They never see it. They turn back/
• V13 Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. 14 The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.”
• The Israelites needed encouragement from Moses, and sometimes you need encouragement as well
• HE will accomplish for you, THE LORD will fight for you
• When I’m going through it, and I go to prayer, I envision The hand of the Lord and a host of angels going around ministering and moving on my behalf. I see it and I believe it/
• Jeremiah 32:27 Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?
• Make a list of what God cannot do. He will do it eventually. I know he will
• How much did the Israelites have to hold on to the promises that God made them as they went into the wilderness
• Waiting waiting waiting. IT WILL HAPPEN
• They are just about to go through the red sea experience and they are going to see God do it
• What exactly is your faith in? to what have you placed your hope? Does God still move?
• Luke 1:37 “For with God nothing will be impossible.”
• Ephesians 3:20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,”
• Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”